close your eyes,
so you forget.
or remember.
whichever submersion
buries deeper
the salt within you.
it is only you afloat,
naked in the darkest night.
your body is a dream sailing
a sea of decomposing dreams,
patches of brown grass
underneath the auburn leaves.
release what you can touch,
especially if it is nothing.
by then it should not matter
if your eyes stay closed.
when they open, find comfort
in what you cannot see.
(originally published in Skylark Review, Fall 2016)
Walking through the galleries on High Street
absorbing art, the watercolors bleed together–
a blue-green pond carries the weight of ducks.
The familiar arches of the Short North beneath
gray clouds, strokes of paint whoosh cerulean
onto wall, a window with its subject unmoving.
I wait stock-still for the art to understand me,
as if a painted cloud could somehow awaken
within something akin to the sound of wind
on the lake in the presence of trees who long
lost their leaves, age marked by a reception to
desire. With whom will I share my barren age,
those outermost rings which mark the end
(originally published in ‘the vacant hinge of a song‘, courtesy of Origami Poems Project)
When the city stops buzzing, streetlights
invite reflections onto storefront windows.
Finally, the distortions make us young,
removing cigarette burns and ash.
What love is reserved for the old? The bridge
seems sturdy in winter but more slippery
with its blue-streaked ice– and mouths of
gravel seem ageless. Time rescinds her reach
toward the cradle of sleep–
maligned shoes end on a cold porch,
slathered in a salty grit. Snow on
the doormat waits for extinction.
(originally published in “the vacant hinge of a song“, courtesy of Origami Poems Project)
The fractured stone tunnel hollows.
Browned winter leaves
crackle into crumbs.
Birds’ humming stirs into
a white blanket of silence.
That’s when we deadlock to distrust
& wake, shirts faded, stained
with verbal gunshots. Never
too early for shared cocktails,
never too healthy, or sick,
for what you know to be lodged
in your esophagus, bits of
chicken & asparagus held
together as a spell, or a mantra:
shake me, martini, shake me.
Make me loathe a little more.
(originally published in Random Poem Tree, Winter 2016)
You always have to run.
Short North to downtown,
city to city, Indiana
to Tennessee–
one shoe on gravel,
the other careening
through time and space
into a green
where you are unknown
and your running shoes are empty
at our red swing’s feet.
I know you never run to leave,
driving your horizon eyes
miles to sun– and you, after its setting,
glide beside each highway’s unlit rivers
on the bridge of the median, drunk
from driving so long under moon,
far from where our empty bottles
collect in a skyward infinity,
a mountain of clinking memories–
a marathon, a gap traversed quickly.
(originally published in VerseWrights)
the baristas grind bones into coffee
in these cafes I call skeleton closets
this golden-brown-haired babe stands by my table
her laced leggings draw desire with a fine ballpoint pen
her head whips to me from some psychic seventh sense
she is my ex-girlfriend’s brother’s future ex
her eyes descend as B-movie UFOs
attraction vacuums neatly into a plastic bag
she sits with me like a pocketed thunderstorm
galvanized on The Great Wall of Chain-Link
you must believe me she says
there are no hard feelings
a poacher must say the same
beside a rhino’s castrated face
she asks if I come here often
I say I come hard everyday
just the flickering moon will summon the wolf
and we emulate its growls in fluorescent light
time is our species’ one enduring invention
a new carcass will not survive the night
so hold on to your corpse for as long as you can
until we mourn with our friends the forgetting
(originally published in The Broken Plate, Spring 2016)
For two weeks I bathed deep in the sweat of whiskey.
Submerged vocals yawed to 3am caresses together, together.
The silken bed turns itself over, its base an earthquake.
Listerine breath hurls to vortex the two years of refraining
from the holy riptide– how its arms reach
and withdraw, reach and withdraw.
You would drown in the salt of married shells,
sheathe your crackled forearm in the tide’s tattoo.
You would let it embrace and clear
your pearls. Thus begins the tide anew.
(originally published in Scarlet Leaf Review)
sand lodged in the crooks of fingernails
watch the way light
reflects its own water
the last time something glimmered
was birth driving ninety
through the Arizona desert
the scorch in red rocks
pursued our same dreams
pricklier than a cactus
you leave who you love
the phone conversations
of dryer lint and treble
in heat, tires tremble
in cold, you wait
(originally published in “the vacant hinge of a song“, courtesy of Origami Poems Project)
In kindergarten, I sketched a vagina as a circle
lost in strands of hair, similar to a scribbled sun.
The inklings of want would soon
set sail. When I showed the drawing
to my mother, she somehow knew what it was.
Her suspicious eye taught me life is the pursuit
of the scribbled sun. The first time I drove a car alone,
zooming up the hill toward the highway, I took pictures
of the sunset without watching the road, as if heaven
could be captured with my own fingers. At sixteen
I stole Snickers bars at my first job. The dollar store
went under. It could have been worse. I told the priest
maybe God thinks I touch myself improperly.
He said to toss the dirty magazines, meaning
I didn’t change a thing. In marching band, I pressed
my mouth against the trombone’s silver mouthpiece
and kissed when I blew, spit coursing through the instrument’s body
until it dripped onto the checkered floor. I didn’t lose my virginity
too early. By then it was too late. I have seen the L.A. River
rub itself dry beneath the metal bridges, withered and silent,
while the ocean wets perpetual sand, and all I could do
was run my fingers through the tide’s receding hair.
In seventh grade the school librarian declared if anyone
in class could finish A Tale of Two Cities, it was me.
I did not finish. I was twelve and mastering arousal,
turning pages with fingers on thighs inside of skirts,
skulking my hand up to God, to the first time
I knew sanctity– and the feeling, unlike faith,
was enough to make me believe.
(originally published in Corium Magazine, Spring 2016)
This dog has seen you paint red the walls
and its color fade from sheetrock.
Rest. You walk butterfly wings,
each step a budding stem.
You and Jack love similarly, a dance
of tongue-and-stomp. Long-nailed
paws clomp heartbeats to the closed
door, painted white– a desire panting
for who is on the other side– and he waits,
as you have, on so many nights.
(originally published in Heartbeat, Issue 2)